KYIV. Oct 13 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine’s Service for Food Safety and Consumer Protection has invited the plant protection department of Vietnam to visit Ukraine and study the biosecurity procedures for exporting wheat.
The Ukrainian authority said in a press release that the issue was discussed at a meeting of the Ukrainian-Vietnamese intergovernmental commission for trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation.
The sides discussed the state and prospects for Ukrainian-Vietnamese cooperation in agriculture and pointed out the importance of its further development.
The commission members discussed the placing of Ukraine to the list of countries that have the right to export crops to Vietnam.
The special attention was paid to restoration of exports of Ukrainian wheat to the country.
“The fruitful work of the intergovernmental commission gives grounds to count on settling all disputable issues in bilateral trade between the countries by the end of this year,” Head of Ukraine’s Service for Food Safety and Consumer Protection Volodymyr Lapa said.
He said that Ukraine is ready to apply the reciprocity principle in exports and imports of agricultural products and food.
KYIV. Oct 12 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Kernel, a large agroholding in Ukraine, seeks to invest $130 million in construction of an oilseed crushing plant in Khmelnytsky region.
The company said in a press release on Wednesday that the commissioning of the plant is scheduled for 2020.
The installed processing capacity of the plant will be 1 million tonnes of sunflower seeds per year.
“The construction site is in the western part of the country, near Starokonstiantyniv in Khmelnytsky region, next door to Kernel’s silo… The project will be financed from the Eurobond proceeds raised in 2017,” the company said.
The memorandum on construction of the new plant was signed on October 11 by representatives of the company and the governor of Khmelnytsky region.
Kernel said that Western Ukraine has a significant potential to increase sunflower seed production.
The new plant will be the most modern plant in Ukraine in its segment. The enterprise will boost tax payments to the local budget, create new jobs and allow local companies to participate in tenders for providing labor and services, Kernel said.
Kernel is the world’s largest producer and exporter of sunflower oil, the leading producer and supplier of agricultural products from the Black Sea region to the world markets. The vertically integrated structure of the company is built on closely interrelated business segments: production, export and domestic sales of sunflower oil, plant growing, grain exports, providing grain storage and transshipment services at elevators and port terminals. Since 2007 the company’s shares have been traded on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE).
KYIV. Oct 12 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Kharkiv Bearing Plant (HARP), part of UPEC industrial group, has signed a one-year contract to supply bearings to the largest manufacturer of agricultural machinery in Bulgaria – MetalAgro AD.
According to the press release of the HARP, earlier MetalAgro AD used HARP AGRO bearings with a tight X-SHIELD sealing sold via HARP dealers.
“For several years of operation of agricultural machinery with the off-hand HARP AGRO bearings with a unique sealing, Bulgarian farmers have assessed their quality and reliability. Today, MetalAgro AD has decided to install only HARP products to the entire range of agricultural machinery and work with us directly, without intermediaries,” Director of the bearings sales department of UPEC-Trading Vitaliy Buhrov said.
Under the contract, HARP will supply components in the amount corresponding to the need for bearings of the entire annual number of agricultural units sold by MetalAgro AD.
At the moment, the first batch of HARP bearings is already being prepared for shipment to Bulgarian partners.
These are HARP AGRO bearings with a tight X-SHIELD sealing and new bearings of UC Series (similar to YAR), ES (YET) and EX (YEL).
KYIV. Oct 12 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The capacity utilization of enterprises operating in the Ukrainian rocket and space industry in the first half of 2017 amounted to 30.9%, or 3.2% less than in the same period in 2016, the State Space Agency of Ukraine (SSAU) has told Interfax-Ukraine.
SSAU said in an official response to the agency that the biggest difficulties with capacity utilization in the first half of the year were faced by the Makarov Pivdenny Machine Building Plant (Dnipro), which was only 12.4% loaded, and also the state-run Arsenal Plant – 15.2%.
At the same time, the volume of production (in comparative prices) of enterprises operating in the sector in January-June 2017 grew by 35.1% year-over-year, and sales rose by 37.9%. Production and sales in the first half of the year amounted to about UAH 1.87 billion, and gross output reached about UAH 2.23 billion, SSAU said.
In the total volume of sales, the share of exports was 60.5%, or 39.7% than in January-June 2016. Export growth was provided by export-oriented enterprises of the industry. It was 177.6% at the Makarov Pivdenny Machine Building Plant, 83.6% at the Arsenal Special Device Production State Enterprise (Kyiv), 33.4% at Pavlohrad Chemical Plant (Dnipropetrovsk region), 25.1% at Pivdenne Design Bureau (Dnipro), and 18.7% at PJSC Hartron (Kharkiv).
In the structure of exports, 92.2% of products were supplied to the EU countries, the United States, and other countries. The share of exports to Russia shrank by 17.2%, to 7.6%.
SSAU currently manages 26 enterprises and organizations of the space industry. The state budget for 2017 envisages UAH 2.91 billion for financing the space industry, or 14.2% less than in 2016. In the total amount of financing, 61.5% of the funds from the state budget’s general fund are envisaged for the fulfillment of debt obligations on previously attracted loans for the implementation of international industry projects.
KYIV. Oct 11 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Exports of Ukrainian agricultural products in January-August 2017 grew by 24.5% year-over-year, to $11.475 billion, the Agricultural Policy and Food Ministry has reported.
“Over the period Ukraine mainly exported the following group of goods: sunflower oil, safflower oil and cottonseed oil with the share of 26.25% of total agricultural products export, corn – 20.34%, wheat and wheat mixture – 12.87%, poultry – 2.29% and other goods,” Deputy Agricultural Policy and Food Minister for European Integration Olha Trofimtseva said.
She said that the top key buyers of Ukrainian agricultural products over the period includes India, where goods for $1.3 billion were exported, Egypt – $986.1 million, the Netherlands – $762.8 million, Spain – $731.6 million and China – $631.8 million.
“The EU countries are second in the regional structure of our agricultural exports. Our exports to the European market expanded by 37.3% or $988 million over the reporting period, to $3.6 billion,” she said.
Trofimtseva said that the share of EU of the total foreign trade flow of agricultural products is 35.2%.
Agrarian products for $2.8 billion were imported to Ukraine in January-August 2017.
“The statistics allow us to predict the increase in the annual cost of Ukrainian exports of agrarian products and food by 15-20%,” she said.
KYIV. Oct 11 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Velta RD Titan, founded by Ukraine’s RD Titan Group and Velta Group Global, is developing an innovative method for the production of titanium dioxide i-TiO2, which will be an alternative to sulphate and chloride methods for getting pigment-grade titanium dioxide, which was discovered in the 20th century.
The Dnipro-based Velta production and commercial company said in a press release on Monday that Ukraine’s Velta RD Titan had presented the development of the new method as part of the TiO2 World Summit in Spain.
It notes that Velta RD Titan sees the potential of pigment dioxide as one of the important materials for the industrial revolution 4.0. White pigment is the basis for the production of paint and varnish, film materials, plastics, artificial leather, and a number of new developments.
“During the rapid technological development, more and more innovators pay attention to TiO2 products, but for the explosive growth of this material it is necessary to significantly reduce the cost of production. Our developments will reduce the cost and therefore expand the use of titanium products in both classical and innovative markets,” the company’s press service quoted Andriy Honchar, deputy director general and technical director at Velta RD Titan, as saying.
In addition, the statement notes that one of the mandatory criteria for i-TiO2 is maximum environmental friendliness in production.
The development plan with further approbation is designed for three years.
